In Petauke for example, youths are engaging many stakeholders including community leaders such as Village headmen, traditional healers, parents and school authorities to share with them information about the dangers of unsafe abortion. While doing this, the young people encourage their peers to visit and make good use of the youth/adolescent friendly spaces in health facilities – to enable them access various Sexual Reproductive Health Rights (SRHR) services including safe abortion. Amazingly, one of the peer educators/advocates #TheresaDaka is using social media, particularly #TikTok, (https://www.tiktok.com/@telia74) to educate the masses about safe abortion. This is a step in the right direction to addressing not only high cases of unsafe abortions, but also teenage pregnancies, and early marriages in Petauke and the province as a whole.
The countrywide study, “A Critical Analysis of Abortion Related Deaths in Zambia: A National Survey” conducted by the Zambia Association of Gynaecologists and Obstetricians (ZAGO) with financial support from the International Federation of Gynaecology and Obstetrics (FIGO) – show that abortion related deaths have drastically reduced.
Our ECSACOG-FIGO partnership is committed to fostering innovative solutions, amplifying our advocacy to strengthen health systems to better respond to the needs and entitlements of women and girls, which includes their right to access safe abortion care.
Advocacy remains one of the strategic ways to addressing these challenges. Therefore, the need for strengthened advocacy skills amongst SRHR advocates and a creation of a strategy for advocacy is an essential part of the health system.
Eastern Province has continued to register record number of teenage pregnancies and unsafe abortions cases. As recent as March 2022, the Province recorded 1,536 unsafe abortion cases, while 12,982 teenage pregnancies were recorded in the first quarter of 2021. According the records, 400 of these teenage pregnancies were girls below the age of 15, while the rest were between 15 and 19 years. Sadly, the Province recorded high number of child marriages: 39 percent of girls are married off either before or at the age of 18. This situation perpetuates a cycle of poverty as young girls are prevented from acquiring requisite education needed to contributing and benefiting from socio-economic development of the country.
As a professional body representing doctors specialized in maternal and newborn health in the country, ZAGO has been a key player to end gender-based violence in the country. Over the years, the society has employed various strategies to empower both women and girls with knowledge and information on how to identify gender-based violence, and defend their rights.
The need for ZAGO to remain vibrant and active cannot be overemphasized. This is because of the critical role the organisation plays in promoting reproductive, gynaecological and newborn healthcare. The existence of ZAGO has aided in providing direction to the practice of Gynaecology and Obstetrics in the country.
“This is a profound step in the right direction, says, Dr Swebby Macha. “Our ability to work as a unit will undoubtedly take our fraternal organisations to the next level. This, is all in the best interest of women and newborn health. Together, without slightest doubt, we shall reduce maternal mortality and improve the health of our women and newborns.”
Facilities must be instrumental in the review of these women who died and further be proactive in finding solutions to these gaps: it be in their facility or outside their facility. Maternal deaths that occurred at primary care (HC and HP) require strong engagement of both staff at primary health care and the community. Mortalities that happen at community level require strong community mobilization.
“We have a duty to educate our people so they can enjoy and attain quality sexual reproductive health potential,” Dr Macha adds. “We shall do our part as an Association mandated with the responsibility to take care of woman and newborn health to ensure that no woman dies while giving birth.”